Monday, April 13, 2009

The news this week was dominated by the high-seas hostage drama as an American captain was held by heavily armed Somali pirates on a small lifeboat in the Indian ocean. Navy SEALS ended the standoff yesterday, and the captain is on his way home now, but some of the background pieces on the pirates reveal important insights on the on-going trend.

Thursday, American Morning aired a piece from Nic Robertson about the possible links between the pirates and al Qaeda. Just who is funding these attacks and benefitting from the enormous ransoms being paid?

Saturday gave us a NewsRoom report from Stan Grant, who is in Mombasa, Kenya (where the ship was originally heading and is now currently docked.) Local fishermen and tourists react to the acts of piracy:

And here's a perspective that most of us have not studied since junior high: what is the affect of piracy on world trade? Ali Velshi and Christine Romans spoke with Richard Quest on the weekend edition of Your $$$$$ about the bottom line:

Meanwhile, Nic covers a second news story on Thursday, a different (dare I say "more normal"?) type of terrorism -- a cell gets rolled up in Manchester, England. The raids had to be started earlier than planned after an all-too-human blunder: Top Secret documents were photographed being carried into 10 Downing Street, with the names/addresses of the targets plainly visible:

A second report aired on The Situation Room a few hours later, with some local reaction to the arrests:

Finally, a word about a different kind of terrorism: Jeanne Meserve explains the concerns that cyber-terrorists could attack US power grids. Kyra Phillips talks to former CIA operative Robert Baer about the newest aggressions: